Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. (Isaiah 5:20)

I love fantasy stories with epic adventures, heroes, and noble quests. These types of stories usually boil down to what we call the struggle of Good versus Evil. But is that battle what we think it is?

You might know that white light is actually the presence of all color, while black is the absence of all color. It turns out that Good and evil are much the same. Goodness IS an entity – it’s what God is made of. Doing His will then, is Good. Evil is not an entity, it is merely the absence of Good – doing what is not God’s will, but our own. Therefore, the Battle of Good vs. evil is not God versus Satan, nor a battlefield full of soldiers dressed in white versus soldiers dressed in black. Despite my wishes, it is not The Empire vs. The Rebel Alliance – not when it comes to the reality of THIS galaxy far, far away.

If we look at the epic spiritual battles of the Bible, we can quickly conclude that Satan and his demons are simply no match for God Almighty. When God shows up in a battle, it’s ‘Boom, done.’ Consider the ‘Battle’ of Jericho. A town with huge, thick, tall walls that came crashing down with no more than a horn blowing. Or Elijah on the mountain in a ‘sacrifice-off’ with the priests of Baal. A day’s worth of dancing and shouting and Baal never showed up. But one prayer from Elijah and fire from heaven consumed the soaking wet sacrifice and even the altar stones! Not to mention Armageddon – the armies of the earth fighting a huge battle and then Jesus descends from Heaven and ‘Boom, done,’ battle over, Satan and the demons chucked into the pit of sulfur forever.

Those amazing battles would hardly fill a Tik-Tok video, much less a two-hour movie. Even exorcising demons only took Jesus a couple of words, not several days of holy water and prayer.

While these types of stories are thrilling and easy to identify with, our real battle is never with people. As Ephesians 6:10-12 implores, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”

The true battle of Good vs. evil is much more difficult because it lies within each of us – the Battlefield of the Mind. We each have the choice to obey God and His laws or to go our own way and sin. The powers of this dark world only have to convince us to ignore God, deny eternity, resort to violence, or do what feels right to us instead of what God has commanded. Their job is pretty easy, because the Kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom where we are called to love our enemies, pray for our persecutors, turn the other cheek, give up what others are trying to steal and lend to anyone who asks, just to name a few.

All the time I hear people say that they don’t need God in order to be ‘good.’ Their definition of a ‘good person’ likely includes a little lying, cheating, greed, unforgiveness, etc. But obviously, their standard of ‘good,’ is faaaaar below God’s standard. In fact, only one man in history every successfully followed God’s law, and that was Jesus. We who are stained with original sin simply can’t do it ourselves – “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23-24)

We can’t do it on our own. We NEED a Hero. But if we have given our lives to Christ, then His mercies are new every morning and we have another chance to be rescued, renewed and transformed into the likeness of our Hero, Jesus. The Battle of Good v. evil is a lifelong struggle – the Good Fight – and we must keep on fighting until the end.

May the Faith be with you,

Jen